Painting Gallery

ARTIST

Michael Beck

Michael Beck has been exhibiting work nationally since 1972. As an early photorealist. He has exhibited with artists such as Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean, Robert Cottingham and Mel Ramos. In the late 1990’s his subject matter turned to single object still life. His new approach to still life impresses the viewer first with his skill at painting. But once drawn into the piece the viewer is led on a joyful visual journey of how paint and color are applied while simultaneously flooded with thoughts of our relationship to objects, and ourselves, as age renders us obsolete and discardable. Beck’s sense of staging forces us to reconsider the object as celebrity, worn and aged but resplendent with biographical information.

Metropolitan Frames produces the highest quality of frames available in a range of materials and types needed. Their customer service is impeccable. They are vigilant in their oversight and have contacted me quickly when they discover a mistake I have made in ordering. When an item was damaged in transit, it was replaced immediately. I choose to use their floater frames in black ash. The frames complete the presentation of my pieces by creating a strong border to separate the reality of my paintings from that of the wall where they hang.

Architecture has been the inspiration for my art for over twenty years. I photograph architecture, both interiors and exteriors, manipulate the photos in Photoshop, frequently eliminating objects or distorting the context of the original image. By piecing portions of different architectural elements that are unrelated to each other, I construct new, intriguing, familiar, yet unfamiliar architectural forms in my paintings. Compositions are constructed for a fusion of multiple perspectives. My application of oils mixed with cold wax medium sometimes suggest fresco walls; linear detail with graphite, crayons, oil sticks and pencils provides a visual pathway throughout the painting and may imply elements of an architectural drawing. I work on archival Claybord panels from Ampersand, using several of their surfaces, depending on the results that I wish to achieve.

Metroframe designed a very architectural, clean presentation for my work on flat panels, using their float frame, profile 122, in a clear maple with a black interior. Because the work is recessed in the frame it protects the fragile surface and withstands the rigors of taking my work on the road to exhibit in art festivals across the country. I’ve received numerous compliments about the professional presentation of my work in these frames. I’ve used only Metroframe’s products for my work for the past 15 years and their quality and service is impeccable!

Michael RichMy paintings and drawings of the past decade have examined through a language of abstraction the notion of place. Places once visited, invented or discovered, vaguely take shape in the colors and substance of paint. The gray skies of New England, the expanse of the sea, the warm light of autumn, are subjects mined in my work – not in outward depiction but rather through internalized experience. In an effort to understand my own place among these fleeting images, I seek a language that draws on personal history as well as the history of painting while forging a new path between abstraction and the realization of the image of place.

While light, weather and atmosphere act as the impetus in my work, it is my aim to probe the depths of an inner space through meditations in light and color. I am searching through the language of contemporary abstraction, a deeper connection, an understanding of the consciousness of the present moment. The paintings themselves lie in the places between memory and new moments of discovery.

I am always pleased with the high quality of the frames and the great customer service. I need my work to look its best and presentation has to be of museum quality. That’s why I choose Metropolitan Frames. I get the best frames for my work, always on time.

I started painting using watercolor and tempera as a child and still like watercolor for travel studies. I currently paint in oil and acrylic on site and in studio. My work often is about the places where man and the landscape coincide. Dwellings, structures and other man-made objects feature prominently. A marine or foothills backdrop sets the stage. My palette is primarily the modern transparent colors produced by Gamblin that I prefer for their intensity and luminosity.

I have enjoyed displaying my paintings on canvas in Metropolitan Picture Frames floaters for many years. They are simple and clean, complementing the paintings. I prefer unstained cherry which I treat with Howard’s Feed’n’Wax. The wood mellows and darkens over time. I generally have Metropolitan join the larger frames with matching splines.

Ellen Glasgow
My work has been described as “luminist”, “fauvist”, “impressionist”, “colorist”, “minimalist” and even “abstract”. I don’t mind any of these descriptions, but I don’t really think of my paintings in that way.

It really is just NATURE that interests me. I like vistas, strong horizontal lines broken by groups of trees or distant islands…coastal North Carolina and the Outer Banks. Edges where sky meets horizon and the mysterious habitat of the fence row and the open spaces of Northern Indianan with clouds or islands “floating” on the horizon continue to enthrall my eye.

And reflections…Reflections in the water have been a mesmerizing subject for quite a long time. Moving back to Kentucky and living on a boat on the Kentucky River gave me an opportunity to really look at and contemplate the color and light at all times and seasons—as well as the aspect of the ridges sloping down to meet the water. The geometric shapes and simplified forms repeated in the mirror of still water–changes in texture, color and distortion of shapes– is ever fascinating.

After all this work of completing a large oil painting, finding the right frame that would set off the work properly and in a sleek finished manner was a whole other challenge. Discovering Metropolitan Frames 20-plus years ago was a god-send…always dependable, helping me solve problems, plus great quality in finishes and attention to detail. I not only use their deep ‘floater’ frame exclusively for oversize works, but also for smaller canvases. My dealers in St. Louis, MO and Louisville KY love the handsome presentation as do my collectors.

Hilary Eddy
In looking at the real world with great attention, in fixing my gaze on reality, reality is transformed into a kind of marvelous dream, explains Hilary. I have gradually become passionately attentive to the most ordinary things that constitute the decor of my life. In my paintings I expose a new consciousness which observes and reveals hidden secrets that are there for us for the taking. We can find excitement in our everyday lives; see the wonders of light reflected, and colors to astound us as we sit in our homes, or as we walk in the garden.

Through this close observation, Hilary delivers a world of hidden beauty and possibilities, latent until discovered and translated into her vibrant, visual language. Her richly varied perspectives lend everyday objects an almost monumental grandeur when placed in unexpected environments–overlooking rolling hills, backed by distant blue mountains and threatening skies, or against the ocean’s sparkle.

She has exibited her work in more than 60 solo exhibitions paintings both nationally and internationally, and has won more than 40 awards in national and regional exhibitions. Her work can be found in private, corporate, and public collections throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.

She currently lives and works on the Mendocino coast in Northern California with her Norwegian Elkhound, Heidi Lyn

I am an oil painter and have been ordering my frames from Metropolitan Framing Company for more than 20 years. I have been very happy with their consistently efficient and friendly service and the great quality of their frames.

I choose the floater frames in ash with the black interior for my large canvases, I like the clean simplicity of this look which does not detract from the paintings.

The calligraphic lyricisms of Connie Connally’s abstractions are inspired by the shorelines of her Santa Barbara home as well as her extensive travels throughout Italy, France and Switzerland. “Nature is the point of departure for my abstractions. I draw extensively from the dynamic rhythm of the oceans where beaches show off their watery hues and jewel-toned bluffs shimmer along the shorelines. Tides may bring in a mystical fog creating a complex visual layering of color and shapes and I try to recreate that experience on my canvas.”

During the time Connally was obtaining her MFA at Southern Methodist University a Joan Mitchell retrospective exhibited at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Experiencing the great abstract painter’s work would change the direction of Connally’s painting. Like Mitchell, Connally moved from the tradition of the figure to abstraction and Connally joined Mitchell’s battle to plan and build compositions; balancing containment and chaos. As Connally’s work matured over the past several years, a softer, more buoyant palette emerged. The fluid marks are thinly applied to a complex multi-layered surface creating jewel-toned skeins. Oftentimes, a final gestured brushstroke will anchor the painting and allow the color fields and tonal variations to recede and move across the ground.

Connally has been invited to exhibit her paintings in many solo and group exhibitions in museums, major art centers and galleries across the country including Texas, New York, San Diego and San Francisco; having earned many awards in these competitive exhibitions. Sought out as a teacher, she was invited to become an adjunct professor at several colleges and universities in Texas over the past several decades. Connally’s paintings are in the permanent collection of a number of Texas museums including Longview Museum of Fine Arts, The Art Museum of South Texas and The Grace Museum. Her works are also found in impressive collections both corporate and private around the world from Texas to Japan and places between like New Hampshire, Georgia, California and Zurich, Switzerland.

Metropolitan Frames clearly makes the finest, most well-crafted product I have seen. Plus, the company provides the most helpful customer service and website to answer every possible question. If I have needed to call or email with a question, I always received a prompt and helpful response. The floater frames I use to finish off my paintings are beautifully made; Metropolitan is as particular about their craftsmanship as I am. I feel confident my paintings look professional surrounded in these handsome frames.

It’s all about light. It’s been a while since I looked hard at and thought about painting spruces against the sky, but something clicked in that moment, and I found myself musing not just on the spruces lining the way home, but on those which grow in profusion on the lower slopes of Chena Ridge, in the forest surrounding Creamers Field, and especially on those in the 2000-acre preserve of woods, ski trails, ponds, marshes, and fields that adjoin the University of Alaska campus. In memory, and soon in fact, I was back on the shore of Smith Lake in those woods, one of the places in Fairbanks I’ve most loved to paint.

Smith Lake Twilight is my latest paean to the way the descending April sun not only blasts through the tops of the spruces, filling the space just above the horizon with white light, but kindles some of the first clouds trying to form cumulus shapes above, in the lengthening days of spring.

I discovered Metropolitan Picture Framing’s floater frames at an AAM (American Association of Museums) conference in Minneapolis about twenty years ago, and I have used no other frames for my paintings on canvas or panel since. I had looked for two things for years, both of which I knew I’d found the moment I saw them: 1) floater frames, which don’t cover the last 1/2″ or more of the edges of every canvas (I compose my images very carefully, and if the last 1/2″ or more on each side weren’t important, it wouldn’t be there!), and 2) design and craftsmanship which would look polished and professional, without calling undue attention to itself. Especially as the price of my paintings rose over the years, I knew I needed frames that would be museum quality in fit and finish, dressy enough for collectors, and modern, clean, and undistracting enough for me. So many collectors of my work have praised the frames over the years, and so many other artists have asked about them and adopted them, that I quickly learned I had made the right choice.

What I didn’t know when I first saw these frames was what a great pleasure the folks at Metropolitan Picture Framing would be to work with, how eager they would be to meet my specific needs flexibly, swiftly, and reliably in every instance, or how absolutely consistent the fine quality of their craftsmanship would be over two decades. I order the smaller frames assembled, and anything larger than 16″ x 20″ in sections, since they’re all shipped to my home in Fairbanks, Alaska.

I use Lukas paints, made in Germany, exclusively, alternating between their oils and their acrylics. Most of the larger paintings are acrylic on canvas and the smaller ones are oils on canvas. I love that the acrylics come in large (500 ml) squeeze bottles and the oils in large (200 ml) tubes. The consistency of the acrylics is just right for me and my work–soft, but dense–the pigments are heavily loaded, and they are very reasonably priced, for that quantity. The oils have the kind of “fat,” creamy consistency I like in oil paints, and also very good pigment density.

I ship all my work in Airfloat Strongboxes. They are not inexpensive, but they are lightweight, strong, reusable, and so incredibly easy to pack. Their heavyweight corrugated cardboard, impervious plastic liner, and three layers of foam make them nearly indestructible, but because they are so lightweight, even a 4’x 5′ painting in its box can be easily carried by one person, so there is no reason for them to be handled with a forklift as most even smaller wooden boxes are, and forklifts are the source of 90% of all damage in shipping. Their light weight and ease of packing and unpacking is also a boon for collectors who receive the paintings they’ve bought. I’ve never seen any artist who has tried these boxes go back to any other kind of shipping containers, if they could afford these. And the people there at their factory in Mississippi are unfailingly nice to talk with and work with.When collectors of my work around the country buy work directly from me–usually from the “Available Works” album on my website–I tell them I’ll have the painting packed and shipped the next day by FedEx 2-Day Air, and they will have it in hand in no more than three workdays from when they ask for it. It couldn’t be easier.